“Don’t stay out past dark or the Demon of the Jungle will get you!” A mother called after her children as they ran barefoot down a dirt path in a small Philippine village, the sun already slipping behind the trees. The air was thick and warm, heavy with the smell…
The summer I turned 13, I got talked into pulling an all-nighter—which completely wrecked my sleep schedule for weeks. The silver lining? Late-night TV in the ’90s had so many great old shows. That’s where I discovered classics like Car 54 Where Are You?, Taxi, and The Twilight Zone. One…
I want to tell you the story of a man named Barry. Barry was an engineer in Los Angeles. Then he lost his job. Then his home. The rest of his worldly possessions followed shortly thereafter. Drugs became an escape, and then an addiction—a chain that bound him to this…
In the fall of 1959, two men sat across a chessboard. One was Vasily Smyslov, former World Champion—calm, precise, a technical master. The other was Mikhail Tal, a 22-year-old Latvian genius nicknamed The Magician, famous for moves that left onlookers speechless. Smyslov—ever the pragmatist—opened with the well-worn Caro–Kann Defence. Tal…
I want to begin with the story of Anastasia. She was born to an unremarkable family in the Czech Republic. Eastern Europe has a proud heritage of musical excellence, and her mother—Nadia—had played a little violin as a girl. So, on Anastasia’s eighth birthday, she handed her daughter a small…
There’s an old story about a small kingdom perched high on a mountain—though “mountain” may be generous. It was really a hill, just high enough to lift its people above the valley below. From that height they could see every road and river that ran through the farmland spread beneath…
There was a season of my life where I worked as a web developer for an agency based out of Kamloops. And while I was there I got to work with some amazingly talented people. One in particular always stands out to me; her name was Lea, and she was…
Gary turned 40 in 1964, and like every other man of his generation, his attention was captured that spring by the launch of the Ford Mustang. It was magical — the roar of that V8 driving 2,500 pounds of pure Americana, 271 horsepower, and a 4-speed manual transmission. He wanted it…
I wanted to start by sharing with you the tale of an idiot—an idiot who threw away everything: his education, his career, his home. An idiot who did so in spite of good counsel, stern admonition, and even full-throated rebuke. An idiot who pursued his own destruction with reckless abandon, somehow…
Opening Story I want to start this morning with a story about a single mom. She grew up in a small town, moved away to a big city in another country when she grew up, married a man, had a baby... then it all fell apart. Divorced, isolated, unemployed. She…
Opening Illustration & Setup Once upon a time in a land far, far away... The globe stands at the precipice of war. The world is watching, the people are holding their collective breath. One man, a power-hungry autocrat who thinks his nation has been cheated, wronged by the nations around…
Hook Anyone else remember writing “papers” in high school? I remember getting an assignment to write like 3 page or 5 pages on whatever-it-was and just sweating… like, how am I supposed to write so much!? This is insanity! No human being could accomplish this feat! Then I went to…